The Resurrected A&F Quarterly

Personally, I always enjoyed the A&F Quarterly and viewed Abercrombie & Fitch's discontinuance of the publication as a surrender to the busy bodies of the Christian Right who always view the human body as something dirty and shameful. If you don't like the A&F Quarterly, simply don't buy it. And if you're worried about your little darlings seeing it, then know where your children are. The irony is that the little kiddies can see far, far worse nowadays on the Internet and elsewhere. I'm glad that the self-anointed moral police have lost another battle. As readers may have noticed, A&F style photos are what I like to use on this blog. Both Fashionista and New York Magazine have coverage on the resurrected publication. Here are highlights from New York Magazine:
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On Saturday, the A&F Quarterly — a catalogue you can buy! — returned after a seven-year hiatus. To buy yours, you would have had to reserve a copy online and then pick it up in the store between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. — the time restrictions perhaps being Abercrombie's attempt to ensure you'd enjoy the pleasure of buying their marketing materials in broad daylight, perhaps also forcing you to bring them to brunch or happy hour where other people would see them. Once you were in possession of the catalogue, a red warning label assaulted your eyes with a reminder that the pages within the plastic wrapping contained adult content and nudity only appropriate for people 18 years old or older.
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[T]he new A&F Quarterly is pretty much exactly like the old one featuring Bruce Weber's photos of gorgeous young men and a few token chicks in various states of playful undress. If you didn't know it was from 2010, it could easily have been from 2003, or 1998 or whenever, which, depending on your point of view is either comforting or disappointing. Conceptually, however, it represents the roots of Abercrombie's current business woes as the store remains mired in outdated aesthetic concepts that it refused to abandon.
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But on to the pictures! After all, there are hardly any clothes in the book anyway, and with the whole afternoon at our disposal, we decided to do the Concerned Parents of America a favor and count the instances of nudity that necessitated that bossy warning sticker.
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It's hardly hard-core porn, but at $10 a copy it's certainly priced like it, and while there is no actual full frontal nudity, there is plenty that without a strategically placed hand, leg or even a big black dot, would easily qualify.

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A few more photos can be found here.

U.S. Gay Group Gains United Nations Accreditation

Despite the efforts of Republicans like Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Islamic countries including anti-gay strongholds like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has been granted consultative status by the UN Economic and Social Council. Since the IGLHRC advocates against anti-gay laws and state-sanctioned violence against LGBT individuals, it's no surprise that theocrats in both the USA and abroad did not want a pro-gay voice in the UN's debates. Here are highlights from Pink News:
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The US-based gay rights body has been lobbying for accreditation since 2007 and becomes the tenth LGBT rights organisation to be recognised by the council. The 54-member council approved the group's application for consultative status by a vote of 23-13 with 13 abstentions.
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The decision means that the IGLHRC can participate in a more formal way with the UN through attending meetings, submitting statements and collaborating with the UN and world governments.
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"The clear message here is that these voices should not be silenced and that human rights cannot be denied on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity."

*The group has been struggling to gain accreditation for the last three years and believes it was subjected to homophobic questioning and procedural roadblocks because it is a gay organisation.

The Far Right's Never Ending War Against Kinsey

Whenever I want to visit a fantasy world I check out sites like AFA, CWFA, Focus on the Family or Wing Nut Daily. The lunacy and fabrication of false story lines is often nearly breath taking. Today was no exception when I went to Wing Nut Daily and found the latest so-called book by (in my view, the seriously disturbed) Judith Reisman (pictured at left). Her latest diatribe on Alfred Kinsey is entitled "Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America." Indeed, Reisman has made a full time job out of trashing Kinsey, gays and anyone who doesn't subscribe to her particular views/beliefs on sexuality. It would almost be funny except for the fact that as reported by the New Yorker, under prior Republican administrations Reisman made out like a bandit in terms of tax moneys received for bogus research (she was given seven hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars by Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department to study pornography). Reisman's latest screed allegedly:
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documents how Kinsey refused to hire Jews, blacks, Catholics or anyone with religious or ethical beliefs, forced his own research team to reveal their innermost sexual secrets, subjecting themselves to blackmail and humiliation, and manipulated and manufactured data to persuade Americans to abandon their sexual mores and commitments to marriage, family and fidelity.
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The sad truth, however, is that Reisman is nothing short of crazy and in need of some heavy meds and no small amount of mental health intervention. That she is a doyenne of the far right speaks volumes about the fantasy based world in which the theocrats live. The New Yorker describes her as follows:
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Most Americans no longer give much thought to Kinsey as a societal force, but his detractors believe that his significance can hardly be overstated. A recent newsletter of the abstinence-education group Why know? compared the publication of “The Kinsey Report,” in 1948, to the attacks of September 11th, and labelled Kinseyism “fifty years of cultural terrorism.” Judith Reisman is the founder of the modern anti-Kinsey movement.
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In one article, Reisman describes Kinsey as “a scientific and moral fraud, a certifiable sexual psychopath as well as a sadomasochistic pornography addict and a sexually harassing bully.” Though largely unknown outside social-conservative circles, Reisman has been influential within them. She has served as a consultant to the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and was given seven hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars by Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department to study pornography. More recently, she has been active in the rise of abstinence-only education;
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To a reader of Reisman’s scholarly papers, it sometimes appears that there is little for which she does not hold Kinsey responsible. In her research on gays, for instance, she has written that the “recruitment techniques” of homosexuals rival those of the Marine Corps. The Kinsey paradigm, she holds, created the moral framework that makes such recruitment possible. Reisman also endorses a book called “The Pink Swastika,” which challenges the “myths” that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party and the Holocaust itself, she writes, were largely the creation of “the German homosexual movement.” Thanks to Alfred Kinsey, she warns, the American homosexual movement is poised to repeat those crimes. “Idealistic ‘gay youth’ groups are being formed and staffed in classrooms nationwide by recruiters too similar to those who formed the original ‘Hitler youth.’

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Once again, Wing Nut Daily has proven itself to be the platform for the seriously demented and seriously disturbed voices of the Christianist and neo-con far right.

More Monday Male Beauty

President of Argentina: "In a Few Years This [Gay Marriage] Debate is Going to be Anachronistic"

Once again Argentine President Cristina Kirchner (pictured at right) is setting the standard for what a fierce advocate of LGBT equality (in fact, equality for eveyone) ought to be. This time she does so in an interview following the passage of same sex marriage last Thursday The irony is that Argentina, with its history of dictatorships and other social malaise which has not favored the fair treatment of all citizens, has now leap frogged far, far ahead of the United States on the issue of LGBT equality. Would that Barack Obama had half the the back bone of Ms. Kirchner on this topic. It truly is an embarrassment to see how beholden the U. S. government has become to religious extremists who in the final analysis would happily overthrow the Constitution and establish a hate and fear based theocracy. Here are highlights of an interview that Kirchner did with Pagina12 on her way back to Argentina after a state visit to China. One can only wish that Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats could have the grasp of the concept of equality that seems to be racing forward in the Southern hemisphere of the Americas (Note: the translation is via Google translate and not necessarily exact):
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"It was a triumph of society," she said. "Even I think that some of those who today are against the passage of [gay marriage] in time are going to change their minds because these things take perspective with the passage of time. If you think that 58 years ago I could not vote and now I am President, or that before there could be no interracial marriages and that the rights of people were differentiated based on the color of their skin. There are people who previously supported this who today surely would be ashamed of it.
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The intention was to cover it [opposition to gay marriage] up as a religious issue, but it is strictly social. . . . I think we should take it [homosexuality] very naturally, without dramatics, without fighting. It [same sex marriage] is the right to exercise an option for the person about his personal life.
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And if you go a little further back, the institution of marriage comes from Roman law, the great organizer of private property. Marriage, inheritance and property rights, all had to do with private property, how to succeed legitimately to title to property by legitimate and illegitimate children. And marriage laws in Rome which was a pagan society. So give it [civil marriage] a religious connotation to marriage between two people is not even a historical truth.
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Argentina has always been an advanced country in Latin America, from the strong social movements to the strong political movements, from trade unions through the institutions of the universities. It has always had a strong impact in Latin America.
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This is the crux of opponents of same sex marriage: wanting to impose a way of life. As a society we can require the other to not steal, not jay walk, but we can not require you to have the privacy with another. . . . equality before the law enshrined in the Constitution and Article 19 and judging private relationships is reserved to God alone.
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Anything recognizing rights, extending them is good for society. So I say it was a great day for society and for those who are going to have those rights. Who am I to deny someone that right of marriage? I find it inconceivable and, in some cases, hypocritical, knowing the personal life of many people [who opposed the legislation].
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I deeply believe in God but not the punishing God, the God who pursues, the God that if I do something I burn in Hell. I believe in a God who wants justice on Earth as well, which protects the weak, who cares for a minority. Jesus was characterized as a great protector of the weak and the oppressed. . . . he said he who is without sin cast the first stone. Who among those who make up the Argentine parliament can throw a stone?

Office Share Opportunity

One of my sub-tenants is moving out because his wife has accepted a position in the Czech Republic and as a result, I have an office available for rent. The rental includes a private office and shared use of the firm lobby area, the main conference room and the private kitchen that serves the office. The current tenant has paid $500.00 per month, but rent is negotiable and depending upon the tenant's requirements could possible include Internet access.

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The law office is located in the heart of Norfolk's upscale and pedestrian friendly Ghent neighborhood and close to downtown Norfolk without the need to park in parking garages. Restaurants, Starbucks, shops and other amenities are just steps from the main office area entrance on the first floor. The firm's space is on the second floor so that even in tropical storms or hurricanes (we are in the midst of hurricane season), flooding is not an issue. area.

The photo above shows the front facade of the historic building in which the office is located. The photo at left resembles the front lobby

Any local readers who might be interested or know of others who might be interested, please contact me either via the e-mail address on this blog or at mike@hamarlaw.com. The office phone number is (757) 622-2008.

Another "Ex-gay" Therapist Is Busted

Wayne Besen appears to have hit pay dirt again. It seems that
Alan Downing (pictured above) - the Director of Coaching and Group Services for the Jonah Institute, and a staff member of the Spring Lake Heights Counseling Center, of Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey and Brash-McGreer Associates of Medford New Jersey - who markets the lie that gays can "change" and become straight has been busted for inappropriate sexual behavior with much younger patients in his "ministry" program. What is it about these proponents of the "ex-gay" myth (e.g., George Rekers) who get off with voyeurism and other activities with young gays who could very well be their children. Rather than allegedly counseling others about the same sex attraction ("SSA" to use their jargon), these frauds need some serious psychological counseling themselves. The sad truth is that these snake oil programs exists for two reasons: (1) so that leeches like Downing can enrich themselves off of religiously brainwashed gays and (2) so that Christianists can claim to legislators and judges that being gay is achoice and, therefore, not worthy of legal non-discrimination protections. These folks give the term sleazy a whole new meaning. Here are some highlights from Truth Wins Out:
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Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
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Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.
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“These dysfunctional,unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shutdown,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often,repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”
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JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole,Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.
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This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”
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Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called,“homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.
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I truly believe that parents who place their underage children in these "ex-gay" programs need to be charged with child abuse and prosecuted. No youth deserves to be emotionally and psychologically scared simply because their parents are religious extremist whack jobs.

Monday Male Beauty

Newsweek on Afghanistan: It's Not Working and It's Time to Get Out

In an assessment that ought to be obvious to anyone other than neo-cons and senior military brass types who love nothing better than waging war - although they are always safely far from the front - and will claim to be on the verge of victory right up until the last troops get massacred, a Newsweek column by a former Bush official, while self-serving, has nonetheless had the guts to say what too few in the mainstream media have been willing to say: we are losing in Afghanistan, we cannot win, and we need to get the Hell out of there.
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Yes, stating the obvious is heresy amongst the far right who would have the U.S. go on throwing money and young lives down a rat hole, but sooner or later the nation needs to wake up to reality. Other than a quick foray to take out Bin Laden - which the Chimperator botched because of his eagerness to invade Iraq - we should never have been in Afghanistan. Plain and simple. Lives squandered, billions of dollars wasted and we're losing. Here are some column highlights:
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The war being waged by the United States in Afghanistan today is fundamentally different and more ambitious than anything carried out by the Bush administration. Afghanistan is very much Barack Obama’s war of choice, a point that the president underscored recently by picking Gen. David Petraeus to lead an intensified counterinsurgency effort there. After nearly nine years of war, however, continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.
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The first thing we need to recognize is that fighting this kind of war is in fact a choice, not a necessity. The United States went to war in October 2001 to oust the Taliban government, which had allowed Al Qaeda to operate freely out of Afghanistan and mount the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban were routed; members of Al Qaeda were captured or killed, or escaped to Pakistan. But that was a very different war,
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My colleagues in the Bush administration had no interest in my proposal. The consensus was that little could be accomplished in Afghanistan given its history, culture, and composition, and that there would be little payoff beyond Afghanistan even if things there went better than expected.
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By the time Obama became president in 2009, the situation inside Afghanistan was fast deteriorating. . . . Since then Obama has had several opportunities to reassess U.S. goals and interests in Afghanistan, and in each instance he has chosen to escalate. . . the return of the Taliban was equated with the return of Al Qaeda, and the United States became a full protagonist in Afghanistan’s civil war, supporting a weak and corrupt central government against the Taliban.
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Today the counterinsurgency strategy that demanded all those troops is clearly not working. The August 2009 election that gave Karzai a second term as president was marred by pervasive fraud and left him with less legitimacy than ever. While the surge of U.S. forces has pushed back the Taliban in certain districts, the Karzai government has been unable to fill the vacuum with effective governance and security forces that could prevent the Taliban’s return.
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All this argues for reorienting U.S. Afghan policy toward decentralization—providing greater support for local leaders and establishing a new approach to the Taliban. The war the United States is now fighting in Afghanistan is not succeeding and is not worth waging in this way. The time has come to scale back U.S. objectives and sharply reduce U.S. involvement on the ground. Afghanistan is claiming too many American lives, requiring too much attention, and absorbing too many resources. The sooner we accept that Afghanistan is less a problem to be fixed than a situation to be managed, the better.

The Vatican Simply Just Doesn't Get It

Over the weekend I looked at the Vatican's incredible insensitive - can we say down right stupid - move in equating the sexual abuse of children by priests as equally heinous with the ordination of women as priests. Maureen Dowd, with her typical verbal flare, took on this idiocy in a New York Times op-ed column yesterday. Until such time as the Roman Catholic Church gets over its Medieval views of sex and the inferiority of women, I suspect that more and more Catholics will listen less and less to the Church's hypocritical and sexually obsessed moral lectures. Add that to the still ongoing disclosures of sexual abuse and high clergy cover ups of it and it all equates to waning Church influence in the developed and educated parts of the world. Indeed, Catholicism is headed for a third world religion status. Here are some highlights from Dowd's column:
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If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn’t really do that.
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The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it’s making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it’s taking baby steps.
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The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened. There is no moral awakening here.
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In a remarkable Times story recently, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger debunked the spin that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the more alert officials on the issue of sexual abuse: “The future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction.
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In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus “is the one who said, ‘Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.’ That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus.
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I cannot begin to understand the warped thinking of the Church hierarchy - and I am glad that I can't comprehend it since it is utterly sick.